A Kind of Flower

I came home to a small pot of soup
gurgling on the stove:
vegetable with a splash of lamb,
"sactifice boiling in its own juices"
my father said once. The nettoyeuse knows
lamb is my facourite. She is kind
and tries to seem necessary to my life.

It is October now in Samarkand--
not orange and crisp like
New England with its leaf loss
and vague brittle excietments.
But you are here, not far
from where I am composing
these words about trees,
and you say sweety. "I love
flowers," and you mean
the ones I gave you this day.
In this dry month, your words
are brighter than tulips
more ebullient than June's lupines,
as happy as rain drops and as free.